Science Communication 101 bibliography

A couple of months ago, a colleague asked me to post an introductory bibliography for science communication studies. I was slightly wary, because the literature in the field is rather scattered and can be a bit dense in places. Moreover, I don’t like the idea that you need to have read any particular source to understand science communication. I do think they can help, but you can learn about the topic in a range of ways. The idea of a science communication ‘canon’ is silly.

Let me know if I’ve missed something you think is amazing and want to share with others. I should also say upfront that this is quite UK centric.

Science in Public, by Jane Gregory and Steve Miller. This textbook is comprehensive, clear and ever so slightly cynical (in a good way). Annoyingly, it is also about 15 years old. It looks a bit dated in places and I wish they’d do an update, but most of the content still stands up and it’s still the first book I’d recommend.

These two recent books from the OU on Science Communication in an Information Age are designed as introductions and are pretty good (even if they don’t really get to grips with what they mean by information age…). I especially like the essays by Alan Irwin, Robert Doubleday, Jack Stilgoe, James Wilsdon, Sarah Davies and Felicity Mellor.

See Through Scienceby James Wilsdon and Rebbecca Willis, published by Demos. This is free, downloadable, clearly written and reasonably short. It’s the manifesto for ‘upstream’ science communication, but’s also a great introduction to ideas in public participation in science. I tell students to read it to help revise for exams. Other Demos publicationsThe Public Value of ScienceandThe Received Wisdomare recommended.

If you want the classics, you should read Misunderstanding Science? from Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne. It’s worth listening to Wynne’s interview in the CBC “How to Think About Science” podcasts for a bit more context. Irwin’s Citizen Science is also worth a read. These will help explain why people bitch about a so-called ‘deficit model’. Stephen Hiltgartner’s paper on the ‘Dominant View’, is also useful for understanding a shift from talking down to the public about science and instead attempting to inspire conversations between science and society.

Peter Broks’ Understanding Popular Science is good for the long view, including some clear introductions to areas of social theory (or at least notions of ‘modernity’ etc). Don’t be put off by the title, it is about science communication in general (by which I mean it includes what some people prefer to call ‘engagement’ rather than ‘popular science’). If you like your social theory with a more sociological smell, try Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge by Alan Irwin and Mike Michael.

Oh yeah, I edited a book once. I forgot about that. You should totally read that. Ok, don’t. It’s really rare, but the introduction, which you can download for free, is probably quite useful. My essay in that book – on the way we frame children’s relationships with science – is also free to download.

If you are interested in studies of what the public think/ know about science you really should try to get hold of Bauer et al’s ‘What can we learn from 25 years of PUS survey research’. It introduces all the main approaches and publications in this area, with brilliant clarity and fair context.

If you are interested in science in the news media, Stuart Allan’s Media, Risk and Science is a nice clear introductory textbook. I can also recommend this report from the University of Cardiff. It’s nothing especially shocking and starting to show its age, but I’ve found myself sharing it loads over the last couple of years as a great introduction to basic media analysis of science. Dorothy Nelkin’s Selling Science is another classic, and Martin Bauer’s longitudinal analysis of 20th century British science news is fascinating. There are loads of other great books on the topic, but they are quite rare.

When it comes to ‘new-ish media’, science bloggers are a reflexive bunch and what they write about themselves is often worth a look. It doesn’t always have the same depth or breadth of view as you’d expect from academic research, but their subjective experience can be useful and interesting too. Ed Yong’s journalism category is certainly worth keeping a eye on. Alternatively, Brian Trench has some neat overviews of science online in thesethreebooks.

Thanks – obviously I should have referenced Nick’s book (head of dept during my PhD…). Yes, the Bucchi book is good. I mentioned it in another list, though I could have included it for the chapter on communicating science.

Bucchi’s edited a couple of other great intro books too, but I largely avoided them here because they’re so rare. Great if you can find them in the library though.

From what I know of those books, they are slightly different the bulk of above (which are largely, though not exclusively, sources from the academic study of science communicaiton). That’s not to say those books aren’t worth reading, just that they hold a slightly different place in the literature.

‘The unresolved tension between expertise and democracy appears whenever experts and specialists have found themselves engaged with other groups, not least in the contemporary debate about science and the citizen.’ Rethinking Expertise by Harry Collins and Robert Evans.

Good question, although I think it’d really depend on the scientist, which is partly why I did such a long list (so people could glance down and see what’d interest them/ was accessible).

Again, I’d say Science and Public is my first choice, even if it’s a bit old, and the OU books are reasonably comprehensive, if a little variable in quality and not especailly gripping. The Demos publications like See-Through Science do include some great summaries of previous work. I’d say the same for Bauer et al’s ‘What can we learn from 25 years of PUS survey research’ PUS paper too.

I wonder if there is a space for a piece that connects ideas in this area, but in a way that makes you want to actually read the book in it’s own right. Some of the 25 years of PUS stuff might come close, but they all seemed to have been from very partial perspectives (which is interesting, but doesn’t do as an introduction). Or maybe it’s all too niche.

Thank you, Alice. This list is very useful.
I recently decided to take the plunge and study sci-comm instead of something “traditional”. It took a lot of thinking because sci-comm doesn’t exist as something you can study in my country, and now I’m looking forward to learn as much as I can.